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My favourite hero to play in HotS is Nazeebo. He’s a specialist meaning he’s very good at siege damage, and his basic attack drains health and mana, making him a top choice to solo lanes. His single target damage doesn’t rival that of an assassin, but he can do lots of area damage.

Here are some tips on how to make the most of Nazeebo’s abilities.

Voodoo Ritual is a passive ability applied with Nazeebo’s basic attack. Getting this poison up on enemies is good,and you’re be able to see when the DoT with kill a creep on their health bar, allowing you to switch and attack something else. This DoT is also good for keeping stealthy opponents out of stealth.

Corpse Spiders will do initial damage where they land, then go after whatever enemy or structure is closest. The base ability summons 3 spiders that last 4 seconds. These are pretty good at chasing retreating enemies.

Zombie Wall can clinch a team fight. Or completely screw your team over. There’s a delay after casting this, so it can be hard to trap the hero you’re targeting. Keep an eye out for stunned heroes which are easier to trap, or try to anticipate the movement of your target.

If you accidentally trap a teammate (or yourself), you can press W again in order to remove the wall.

Some other uses for Zombie Wall:

Aiding in escapes. If you’re on the run, cast the zombie wall in your current location so it traps, or at least blocks the heroes chasing you.

Blocking. Most maps have choke points where dropping a zombie wall can really screw over your opponents. You can trap them in small passages, allowing your team to kill them quickly. In maps like Dragon Shire, you can drop Zombie Wall at one of the entrances to the shrines to keep enemies out (or in). You can also drop the wall over an enemy gate to keep them in or out.

Soaking. When you’re laning and getting close to enemy structures you can place the zombie wall next to a turret, tower, or fort. The structure will then shoot at the zombies rather than you or your team’s minions. This tactic can also be used to soak ammo.

Merc camps. Drop this in the middle of a merc camp so the zombies are taking damage instead of you.

Plague of Toads summons 5 toads from your location, which will hop a ways and explode when they reach an enemy or structure. The toads don’t move too quickly so they can be fairly easily avoided. In a team fight, try to aim them at heroes who are stunned, trapped, or just really close and won’t have a chance to get away.

Gargantuan is a level 10 talent (spoiler: this is the one I’m going to recommend in my upcoming talent guide). This big guy hits hard, but you can’t specifically tell him what to attack. He does huge damage to minions and structures, making him great for laning or defending against mercs.

Stomp. Once he’s been summoned, Gargantuan has an AoE Stomp attack that can be triggered every few seconds by pressing R.

Merc camps. Nazeebo excels at taking merc camps to start out with but with this guy, they are a breeze. Stomp, stomp, stomp.

He will avenge you. Gargantuan doesn’t die when Nazeebo does. So keep your eye on him as you’re waiting to respawn and continue making use of Stomp.

This post is now out of date. For the updated list of debuffs, click here.

This post will outline all the different raid-wide buffs that can be used in raids, and which class/spec is the optimal source of the buff. See here for the post on raid debuffs.

Here are the categories of buffs that can be put on your raid. As with the debuffs, in each category you can only benefit from the most powerful buff used. They do not stack.

Physical buffs

Melee Haste – Increases melee haste by 20%

Who can do it: Frost Death Knights, Shamans

Optimal Application:Improved Icy Talons from a frost DK is a talented ability that procs off Icy Talons. Windfury Totem also provides a melee haste boost but must be talented (from the enhancement tree) to provide the full 20% boost.

Other Sources:

A resto or elemental shaman can also use windfury totem, but will only give a 16% melee haste buff.

Melee/Ranged Critical Strike – 5% melee critical strike

Who can do it: Feral Druids, Fury Warriors

Optimal Application:Leader of the Pack is applied by a feral druid when they are in cat or bear form. Rampage is applied by Fury warriors after getting a critical strike.

Attack Power Buff (Flat Add) – 548-687 AP

Who can do it: Warriors, Paladins

Optimal Application:
Blessing of Might from a pally. When talented this provides 687 AP.

Other Applications:

Battle Shout from a warrior, when talented provides 685 AP. (The shout is 2 AP lower than BoM so overzealous warriors don’t overwrite the blessing).

Untalented Blessing of Might, without talents, gives 550 AP.

Untalented Battle Shout gives 548 AP.

Attack Power Buff (Multiplier) – 10% AP

Who can do it: Marksman Hunters, Enhancement Shamans, Blood Death Knights

Optimal Application:Abomination’s Might from a blood DK and Unleased Rage from an enhance shaman will be applied as a passive aura if you are within 100 yards.

Other Applications:

Trueshot Aura from a marksman hunter is just as good as the buffs listed above. But if you regularly have a blood DK or enhance shaman in raid, and really want to min/max, hunters can find a better place to spend this talent point.

Spell Critical Strike Chance Buff – 5% spell crit

Increased Spell Power Buff – Increases spell power by 144-??

Who can do it: Shamans, Demonology Warlocks

Optimal application:

Demonic Pact from a demo lock gives the raid 10% of the warlock’s spell power whenever its pet crits. If an average warlock has 3500 spell power (when buffed), that’s a bonus of 350 spell power for the raid.

Your mileage may vary.

Other sources:

Totem of Wrath from an ele shaman provides 280 spell power.

Flametongue totem, from a shaman (most likley from a resto) gives 144 spell power, or 165 if talented

All replenishment buffs grant the same amount of mana return. Replenishment will buff the 10 people in raid with the lowest mana. The replenishment effect will not stack, but can be constantly refreshed each time it is triggered.

Other sources:
Although not technically a replenishment effect, Revitalize from a resto druid can restore mana, energy or rage on rejuvenation and wild growth ticks. Since it is a different effect, this does stack with replenishment.

Resistances – Increases resistance to a school of magic by 130

Frost – Can given by a paladin aura or shaman totem.
Fire- Can be given by a paladin aura or shaman totem.
Shadow – Can be given by a paladin aura or priest buff.
Nature – Can be given by a shaman totem or hunter aspect.

Gift of the Wild when talented, gives 76 resistance to all schools of magic. It does not stack with the other effects.

For a quick and easy way to tell if your raid group has all the available buffs and debuffs, see MMO Champion’s Raid Comp tool.

This post is now out of date. For the updated list of raid buffs, click here.

Each class can bring certain benefits to the rest of a raid in the form of buffs for your raid group or debuffs that get put on a boss. For the Blue post on buff/debuff categories, see the official forums (this post is slightly outdated). How important are these things to raid performance? Let’s take my hunter as an example.

According to the Hunter Spreadsheet, with 0 raid buffs or debuffs, I have a max dps of 5520. Not too impressive. But look what happens when we add buffs:

Buffs

DPS

None

5520

Best raid debuffs

7157

Best raid buffs

7858

Best buffs and debuffs

9786

*Does not include self-buffs like food and flasks*

Now, I’m sure you didn’t need me to tell you that buffs are good. But play around with your own class’s spreadsheet to find out just how much difference they make. Even something you may think is relatively minor, like Faerie Fire, can make a difference of almost 100 dps for a hunter. And that’s just for one raider. Add those little bonuses up for a whole raid group and you can see how much you’re missing out on if even one of the available buffs/debuffs is missing.

This post will deal with the categories of debuffs that should be present in a raid to optimize performance (buffs to come later in the week). In general, debuffs will serve one of two purposes. They will either increase the damage your raid does to a boss, or decrease the amount of damage a boss does to the raid.

Now, these numbers are slightly misleading, because I’ve just checked what each debuff would give me on its own, without accounting for any other buffs. When combined with the other debuffs, their value would be much higher (i.e. the addition of 3% crit would be a bigger dps increase if the boss already had the 20% armor reduction debuff). Even still, it’s clear how important it is to have these debuffs up on the boss in order to achieve the best possible raid dps and make those dps-check bosses, like Festergut, more doable.

Here are the categories of debuffs that can be put on a boss. In each category, you can only benefit from one debuff (the most powerful one). They do not stack.

Major Armor Debuff – Reduces armor by 20%

Who can do it: Warriors, Rogues, worms (exotic hunter pet)

Optimal application:Sunder Armor from a protection warrior. This will be put up as part of their normal tanking rotation.

Lacking a prot warrior, is it optimal for a rogue or warrior to be applying this debuff? That question is a bit too mathy for me. For discussion on this topic see: EJ. Or just tell your rogue and warrior to roll-off and the loser has to apply it.

Shattering Throw – This also applies an armor debuff, but has a short duration and a cast time. It can be used to quickly get the debuff up on a boss during a pull before sunders have been stacked. Note: This ability actually stacks with the 20% debuff from Sunder (thank you Rilgon!).

There is also an armor reducing ability used by worms, but as this is an exotic (BM only) hunter pet, you probably won’t be seeing too many of these in raids.

Minor Armor Debuff – Reduces armor by 5%

Who can do it: Druids, Warlocks, wasps (hunter pet)

Optimal Application:Faerie Fire is used by Feral druids for threat, and balance druids use it for extra hit and crit on the boss.

Other sources:

Faerie Fire – If you don’t have a feral or balance druid, resto druids can apply this as well. It does mean leaving tree form, but even if you can just cast it once at the beginning of the fight, it lasts 5 minutes and will buff the physical dps.

Sting – applied by a hunter’s wasp pet

Curse of Weakness – applied by a warlock. Since curses can make up a large part of a warlock’s personal dps, this should be used only if you have no druids. If you have a caster-heavy group, it might not be worth it.

Physical Vulnerability Debuff – Increases physical damage taken by 4%

Who can do it: Arms Warriors, Combat Rogues

Optimal application:
This is a talented ability that it is applied by arms warriors as Blood Frenzy and combat rogues as Savage Combat.

Bleed Damage Debuff – Increases bleed damage taken by 30%

Who can do it: Feral Druids, Arms Warriors

Optimal Application:
Mangle – This is used by bear tanks as part of their tanking rotation.

Other sources:

Trauma – An arms warrior talent that procs off critical strikes.

Feral kitties also have mangle, but are happier when they have someone else to put the debuff up for them.

Optimal Application:
Improved Shadow Bolt – Although this talent is in the Destruction tree, it is not used by destro locks. Affliction or demonology warlocks are the ones who will be bringing this debuff to raids.

Who can do it: Retribution Paladins, Elemental Shamans, Assassination Rogues

Optimal Application:
Heart of the Crusader from a ret pally is applied whenever they judge the boss. Master Poisoner is applied whenever an assissination rogue poisons a target. Totem of Wrath is dropped by an ele shaman.

Scorpid Sting – Hunter shot. Serpent Sting is a big part of dps for any hunter spec, so this sting does not get used.

Edit: With the recent changes to Starfall, the Glyph of Insect Swarm is no longer considered one of the top three glyphs. It is now feasible to have the melee hit chance reduction debuff in your raid if you have a moonkin. Don’t ask a hunter to provide it though.